The definitive tome of magic runes for 5th Edition! Unearth new races, lore, monsters, & more tied to your favorite languages!
This is the Pre-order Store for the Kickstarter campaign – Caliya’s Chronicle of Runes: A Runic Expansion for D&D 5e. The prices and rewards (including Stretch Goals) are the same as during the campaign and are available until order quantities are locked in.
** 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: Shipping fees will be calculated and charged SEPARATELY at a later date closer to fulfilment. After shipping fees are added in, you will be notified via email before you're charged. Placing a pre-order from this page constitutes an agreement that you have read and understand this. See the estimated shipping section near the bottom of the Kickstarter page for more.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
April Progress Update!
5 months ago
– Sat, Apr 20, 2024 at 01:56:15 PM
Greetings, folks! Another month, another update to share!
The latest Alpha playtest PDF (v0.5) was sent out about 2 weeks ago, so make sure to go check it out if you haven't had a chance yet. (If you need help accessing your digital downloads for your pledge, feel free to contact me!) The book's really starting to shape up, with over 150 pages in the doc so far, which is exciting to see.
I have a few more fonts just about ready to go (Gnomish and Undercommon, with Sylvan and Sphinx hopefully not far behind), so those should be sent out soon.
Some of the latest art – a scene illustration for the Halfling "Dematerialize" rune
I'm aiming to have the next playtest doc ready to send out around the start of next month. Ryan's been making great progress on the runes and lore for the final couple languages, and I've been continuing to work on the layout, finish up the remaining races and other bits, and refine everything based on edits and feedback. (So please reach out via email or the Discord server if you have any notes!)
Right now, I'm eyeballing July to get a complete draft of the book out: all of the runes, races, subclasses, monsters, and other fun pieces throughout—which I'm currently anticipating will total around 325-350 pages. I know that's a fair bit longer than we all would've liked, but it's important to me to continue updating you all with realistic expectations as things progress.
Genuinely, thank you for sticking with me and continuing to support and follow along with the project!
Into the Wilds is a collection of 9 fully customisable, biome and region themed physical battlemap books for your favourite TTRPG. They are ideal for pre-set or random encounters, so you can be fully prepared no matter which direction your players choose to head in.
Volume 3 Introduces three new Urban themed books to the series, while the returning Volumes 1 & 2 include Overworld and Underworld themed books. The maps are all completely hand-drawn by well known cartographer Tom Cartos, and are customisable with the included re-usable asset stickers, your own 3D terrain, or a dry erase marker.
Backing at any tier also includes the complete digital bundle for online play or at home printing.
Forge your legacy in an immersive world designed for Dungeons & Dragons 5E. Delve into an ancient dwarven kingdom, navigating political intrigue and uncovering long-lost secrets in the Halls of Splendor.
Embark on a quest filled with adventure, danger, and the chance to carve out your own legend.
🔍 What's Included?
Player and GM-Facing Chapters: Dive deep into dwarven lore with surprises at every turn.
Secrets of the Sacred Stone: Start your campaign with a thrilling tier-1 adventure.
Adventure Handouts & Battlemaps: Immerse yourself in epic encounters.
New Content Galore: Explore 4 subclasses, 10 backgrounds, face off against 9 new adversaries, master 10 new feats, and confront corruption with a brand-new 5E sub-system.
Join us as we journey into darkness, where legends are forged and heroes rise. Unleash your inner dwarf and secure your place in history today! ⚒️✨
March Update – New Content Incoming!
6 months ago
– Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 09:51:20 PM
Hi folks! Nearly missed my monthly "update on the 20th." (or perhaps did just miss it, depending on your time zone!)
I'm continuing to make steady progress on the book: getting more content finished up and laid out, more art, more languages, etc. The past couple months have mostly been new lore and runes for you all, with a couple new races sprinkled in, so I wanted to try to include some other new kinds of content for this next Alpha release.
This month's PDF should be coming around the end of next week. In addition to new runes and lore for a few more languages as usual, this update will include the two Stretch Goal backgrounds (Polyglot and Rune Hunter), a few New Weapons for you to try out, and an Optional Rule for incorporating a new "runic" spell component. I really hope you enjoy them as much as I have. I'm also aiming to finish up the plethora of Tiefling subraces (there are 18 of them!). Speaking of which, check out this art for the Nalfeshnee Tiefling, turned out amazing:
As always, there will continue to be revisions based on feedback and playtesting (most notably this month, the Demisphinx and Nagaran races). So keep an eye out for that!
Kickstarter Spotlight
I haven't gotten to do one of these in a little while! A friend of mine, T.A. Gray, is currently running an absolutely stellar-looking project for 5e centered around the undead: Zander's Guide to Zombie Hunting. Here's some more from him about it:
Zander’s Guide to Zombie Hunting is a 5E tome focused on the shambling dead. Perfect for zombie apocalypse settings, the book comes with a wide range of thematic player options, including:
12+ new subclasses
The transformative new Animist class
1 new lineage: The Bitten
20+ apocalyptic magical items
40 thematic spells
All-new graft magic system
Fully illustrated zombie bestiary
Worldbuilding guidance for pre- and post-apocalyptic settings
Thanks, friends! Looking forward to hearing from you all about the new content. Feel free to reach out to me anytime via email ([email protected]) or the Discord server.
– Tony
February Status Update
7 months ago
– Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 05:36:19 PM
Hey folks,
Just a quick update for you here. I'm pretty proud of the progress that's been made on the book over the past few weeks. Lots of thorough revisions to runes and lore (and still more to come), as well as tweaks to some of the races and subclasses, that I think will really help make the book more cohesive overall.
I'll have another draft ready probably early next week. Lore and runes for 3 more languages (Druidic, Dwarvish, and Orcish), a new elemental "Mepharian" race option, and more. Plus some great new art in the works, like this one!
Glabrezu Tiefling by Marco Morales. Just outstanding character design. <3
With all of that said, I think it's becoming clear that, between art, layout, and finishing up and revising the content, the book is taking longer than I'd hoped to this point. I'm trying to offload the pieces that I can to help me stay focused on what most needs my attention. But those who know me will attest that I never settle for less than my absolute best work, that I can take pride in the end result, and you all unquestionably deserve the highest-quality product. Unfortunately the flip side of that is that sometimes things take more time than I'd like.
Right now I'm anticipating a couple more months of drafts before the book is at that point we can all be proud of to send to print. Inevitably that means other pieces of the project too will take a bit longer to be ready to go, but I'm hoping that the monthly draft updates and fonts coming up can sustain folks in the meantime! It's important to me that you all can see the progress as we go and give feedback throughout the process. (I say this every update, but feel free to reach out anytime with thoughts or questions: [email protected] or the #kickstarter-general channel on the Discord server.)
Thanks, friends!
– Tony
January Update – Quick Update, New Draft Inbound
8 months ago
– Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 10:23:21 AM
Hiya, folks! Not a ton of exciting news to report. Just important to me to stick to the schedule of updates on the 20th each month, so you all can rely on that.
Through the holidays, my family had multiple illnesses tear through us, which really threw a wrench in progress these past few weeks (and made for a rather unfun holiday season). So that definitely set things back a bit. However I'm still moving along, continuing to get more of the runes, subclasses, spells, and races laid out and revised, and of course more art commissioned.
Work in progress for the "Demisphinx" race by Steve Bellshaw. The final will be in the Alpha release this week!
Alpha v0.3 this coming week!
I'll have the next draft ready for you all in just a couple days. The content that you've already seen is really getting nicely refined at this point, having gone through multiple rounds of revision and feedback. I'm quite happy with it!
That being said, please continue to feel free to reach out with any thoughts or questions you have, either directly to my email [email protected] or in the #kickstarter-general channel on the Spectre Creations Discord server.
I'm happy to hear from you regarding anything in Alpha v0.2, or after v0.3 releases this week, especially if you get a chance to live playtest something!
As a final note, I just wanted to say I really appreciate the excitement you all have shown following along as this project progresses. Doing my best to keep pushing through the inevitable hurdles and get the best content I can out to you all. Thanks, friends.
– Tony
December Update – Playtest Releases and Progress
9 months ago
– Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 01:24:46 PM
Greetings, folks! Monthly update here—as a reminder, you can expect these on the 20th of every month!
Check your BackerKit downloads for the latest Alpha!
If the PDF is part of your pledge, you should've received an email from BackerKit last weekend to download the Alpha Playtest v0.2 doc. (If you haven't received it, please feel free to reach out to me!) Took a bit longer than I wanted; I've been brainstorming/working on some new features, like how to format the alphabetical reference tables and how/where to include each of the rune names written out in their respective runic language. Here's an example of the current way that's being implemented:
Early feedback on this seems to be quite positive! The intent is for there to be at least 1 or 2 fully illustrated rune items for each language, such as the Infernal 'Acuity' and 'Fury' runes on a sword (see below). However, I want to make sure that every rune is depicted visually in some way near its respective item description to really help play into the fantasy of runes and fire up the imagination, so the above is my current solution for that.
My goal has been to continue sending out Alpha playtests, then ultimately Beta playtests, every month until the book is finished—collecting and implementing your feedback all the while. And I'm aiming to have v0.3 to you all within the next two weeks.
Feedback. If you look through the Alpha PDF—particularly if you get a chance to use any of the content in live play—I'd love to hear from you! Please direct feedback to [email protected] or the #kickstarter-general channel on the Spectre Creations Discord server.
Status Update
Content for the book is shaping up pretty well. By my count, we're about 90% through the nearly 500 runes that will be in the book. (The remaining ones are mostly from the Stretch Goal languages.) We're similarly through about 80-90% of the race options, with the subclasses probably being closer to around 75% done—mostly because those require a fair bit more time spent on balance and development.
For those keeping up with the playtests, you'll notice that not all of this has been included in the Alpha releases yet. This is primarily due to the time it takes to get everything laid out and through a first round of editing—since as you may have noticed, I almost never release something that I don't consider to be at an acceptably presentable level.
Speaking of which, I've enlisted the help of another talented creator (Ben) who is helping develop, edit, and generally refine the content in the book. He and Ryan have been extremely helpful throughout this process, and I know we'll all be grateful for the mark they leave on the project.
As I'd projected might be the case over the past few updates, the final PDF will indeed be coming along further into the Winter than the initial estimate. Importantly though, a substantial portion of the book is available for you to use now, with progressively more coming in each playtest, which have been very successful in gathering feedback. So thank you all for that!
As always, feel free to reach out here, by email, or on Discord if you have any questions! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.
